6, 10, 20
 

After some years of waiting and searching, finally I got 3 typical C96 pistols.

The previous owner of the "Sechsalder" was in California. I forgot his name. His wife was from Germany, so they collected many German pistols. But he violated something and court forced him to sell the whole collection. The gun is nice, the sorry part is no stock.

Who owned that "Zehnlader" in the past, I don't know. Must be a C96 collector.... this thing is hard to be found in attic "randomly". Good condition, coming with matching stock.

The "Zwanziglader" was owned by world renown C96 expert Joe Schroeder in the past. Good condition, coming with matching stock.

WOW! and another WOW

Recent selling of two nice C96s last month helped funding. Without this "extra" $$, probably had to wait another cycle. Those money did help. Thanks. One angle to view collecting,,,, it is about sharing $$ and guns, when needed.

C 96 are my other passsion!
Thanks for your photographs.

My spouse saw that I was taking pictures of those three guns, asking "how much are they?". I lied, "Two thousand". She continued, "All together?" I replied "No, each one". She's very upset. Obviously, pistols are universally $400-$500 items in her eyes regardless of type, don't know C&R could cost much more... "Don't worry, I have not asked you for a single dollar on these things". Luckily, she did not dig deeper into this.

Oh well, it's an universal problem, I guess!

But, let me congratulate you Alvin for finally achieve an extraordinary goal. The 6 and 20 shots pistols put your collection really in another level. And knowing your passion for the Broomhandle, I can only imagine your satisfaction.
Greetings,
Douglas.

Doug, you underestimated this 10-shot. Non-reinforced 10-shot was not an easy gun to come. I saw seven instances for public sale in recent years: the 1st one was listed by Randy Bessler, it's a refurbished gun without stock; the 2nd one was this one sold by RIAC; the 3rd one was also sold by RIAC; the 4th one from Ralph M. collection was sold by Julia in March; the 5th and 6th one were listed by Antaris, probably both came from Joe S. collection. The 7th from Joe S. collection was sold by Julia a week ago. That's all.

The California guy who sold that 6-shot had many Mauser pistols. But he did not have this type of 10-shot. Ralph M. had more than eighty broomhandles covering almost everything, but he only had one of this type of 10-shot CH which lost all blue. Erickson estimated the rarity of this one is similar to Persian and Italian Navy in his book, but I have seen more Persians on the market.

I've just noticed that are three "cone hammer" congratulations, here at least they are not that common at all!

Erickson & Pate summarized a C96 "Scarcity Chart", which I bet that they did not count C96s imported from China in 1980s, just based on instances pre-existed before 1980s. Very useful, here it is.

25x: Step-barreled Conehammer
20x: 20-Shot Pistol
15x: System Mauser (tapered barrel), Carbine
10x: 6-Shot Pistol

4x: Non-reinforced Conehammer (10-shot), Italian Navy, Persian, 8.15mm
3x: Fixed-sight Conehammer (10-shot), Early Transitional Small Ring, Prewar Bolo (10-shot), Long-Barrel Bolo
2.5x: Standard Conehammer, Standard Flatside, Banner, 9x25, French Gendarme, Schnellfeuer

Collecting C96, the biggest trouble is availability. Even "2x Large Ring Transitional" does not appear often on the US gun market.

Thanks, it's quite interesting, I think they are "all" scarce, especially "genuine" ones with their matching original stock, here in Italy at least, AND quite expensive.

Well, Alvin, it's all your fault: we need more and better pictures to duly appreciate these rare birds. I really didn't noticed the rarity of this 10 shot. The "Zwanziglader" is an eye catcher though...

I am trying to think the logic behind E&P's chart. It definitely does NOT reflect production volume. But I found it's a very practical chart. Erickson and Pate summarized the inter-relationship of those C96s very well.

Say, if I have an excellent original "1x Wartime Small Ring" for sale at $1400-1500 (pretty much reflect today's market), then my nice "2.5x Flatside Large Ring" in similar condition should value at $1400-1500 x 2.5 = $3500-3750. A 1930 in similar condition should value at $1400-$1500 x 1.5 = $2100-$2250. Accurate enough. Of course, this chart did not reflect special marking, special provenance, matching shoulder stock, harness etc. Just plain gun relationship. The only deviation from this chart is "Red 9", probably due to higher demand on that variation from collectors.

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Or, say, a matching 1x Wartime small ring in lower condition, $900 on market. Then, my 20-shot in similar condition from Julia $900 x 20 = $18k. The numbers are very close. Of course, $900 cannot find matching C96 with factory stock, but consider there are more buyers on basic models, so larger swing on price.

Stupid question: What do all the "X" marks mean??? :confused:

it's the symbol for multiplication... I guess

Actually, it's a very good question. Erickson did not say, I guess it means "times", for example, 4x Persian contract C96 is 4 times more scarce than basic model Wartime Commercial.

Does that mean we are supposed to see 1 instance of Persian for every 4 instances of Wartime Commercial on market?? I have met probably more than 1000 Wartime Commercials for sale....by 4x rule, in theory, I am supposed to see about 250 Persians, if not 250, say, 200, or, even 100 Persians are supposed to be met?.... no....no... the actual number is fewer than 10.

So, how did they summarize this chart is still a myth to me. Any thought?

Congrats on the new additions Alvin. I was watching that last Julia auction very closely. I was being prodded by several friends to bid on the Turkish Contract but $27.5 k was more than I wanted to go. Plus the buyer's premium and internet bid premium gets me fuzzed up to begin with.

No the time wasn't right for me to bid on anything, I was interested in the System Mauser pieces as well as the 20 shots but other than watching I knew I wasn't going to bid.

I've been expanding my armor collection ( remember 1:10 rc armor ) and I just agreed to purchase a another lathe and Bridgeport mill. So money flew off on its own.

Jerry

Hi, Jerry. I went to their preview session. The only C96 in Sturgess collection attracted me was the Turkish contract one. A few pieces in Schroeder collection were attractive. So I registered a few, including the Turkish, and this 20-CH. But the budget only allowed one. So, finally only got the 20-CH.

System Mauser 444 was very attractive. But thought about this... if I got 20-CH, and System Mauser, Turkish, etc... what else I would have to wait to appear in future?? Unlike the sellers, I had no plan to expand into Bergmann, I would not start collecting Bergmann although it's interesting. So, I passed 444, leave some holes in the collection and keep waiting.

A few hundred dollars left after paying this 20-CH. So, I bought a Romanian Cugir WASR 10/63 rifle from a local gun shop ... lots of fun there.

Alvin,
Amazing set!
Congratulation.
Mauro

One interesting feature of the "Late 20-CH" is early style 1-10 sight leaf. At s/n 84xx, 10-Shot pistols has 50-500 sight leaf. This 1-10 sight leaf abnormality on Late 20-CH has been addressed in a few places.

But there is another early feature on this variation -- its extractor is early. The extractor on early conehammer is not very flat on its top, it bends a little bit. Early extractor's front end is round and protrudes out of the bolt quite a lot. Later conehammer extractor's top is flat, its front end is a straight line, and it protrudes out of the bolt very little.

Cannot find my camera, will post a picture tomorrow on extractor.

Here is the early extractor. Detail disassembly shows firing pin has no screw cut for firing pin return spring, if I remembered right, that's an early feature as well.

With 20 rounds loaded, total weight is 1441 grams (without stock). Through loading it, I think old theory of why 20-Shot were not made in volume probably needs a little bit revision. Classical theory says Zwanziglader was not made in big volume due to (1) with 20 rounds loaded, it's heavy; (2) it's expensive to make so the retail price was too high for the market.

If we think about this... 1441 grams is not light, but it's not super comfortable to hold it without stock, and,,,with stock attached, 1441 grams is virtually nothing. 200 RM retail price was roughly $50 USD, not cheap, but Mauser self-loading sport carbine was $75 at that time... about 1000 more expensive carbines were sold.

But loading 20 rounds into the magazine well is awkward. First 10 rounds is easy, second 10 rounds is obviously harder. I bet by practical means, user would only load 10 rounds. Exploring the extra 10-round capacity,, it can hold it, but the loading process is awkward. It's not practical to load 20 rounds in fixed magazine well by clip -- the DWM made clip does not support big push-down force on the rounds it holds.

Unlike Mauser bolt action rifle, the top round in self-loading Mauser pistol cannot stay too loose, otherwise, there would be a feeding reliability issue -- if too loose, the top round could jump out of the magazine well "mouth" during the bolt recoiling. In order to hold the top round tight, the follower spring cannot be too weak. If the spring is not weak, then loading the 2nd 10-rounds by clip is not easy. This is a chain.

Assume people only load 10-round in usual case, then, why would factory make many 20-shot pistols. 10-shot pistol was more practical. This is my theory of why Mauser sold many Zehnlader pistols, but only sold 188 Zwanziglader pistols. If we assume its actual 10-round usage in most cases, its extra weight and extra cost was very negative then.

Extractor on Late CH 9xxx 10-shot. This is typical. Please note its front end is a straight line.